HERSHEY - No one will ever question Kyle Gonoude's toughness.

Salisbury's talented junior battled back from a leg injury at the beginning of the year to capture not only the Colonial League meet title, but also the District 11 Class AA meet championship.

It was fitting that Gonoude would have one last hurdle to clear at the PIAA Championships this past weekend.

"I wasn't used to staying here (at the course) for two and a half hours before the race," Gonoude said. "I was feeling bad; my body's been breaking (down) on me a little bit lately and I haven't been feeling good.

"But as the race started and we got to the last hill, I said, 'All right, it's time to stop being a kid.'"

And with that, Gonoude blitzed the most challenging part of a difficult course, passing several runners along the way, claiming a medal with a seventh-place finish in the Class AA race with a time of 16:49.

The finish was also an improvement from his 16th-place performance a year ago.

That experience helped Gonoude deal with the conditions surrounding him on a day that he wasn't feeling 100 percent.

"The race felt a lot slower than last year and that helped me a lot psychologically," Gonoude said. "Dealing with the humongous, fast start and the avalanche of people crashing over you, knowing where to pass people, it helped a lot."

The gritty performance didn't surprise Salisbury coach Doug Hensinger.

"In my 24 years of coaching, he's hands down the toughest kid I've ever come across," Hensinger said. "I say that not only because of how he's bounced back from the injury he suffered after track season, but also before the race he was hurting and wasn't feeling very good.

"I just tried to talk him through the mental aspect of it and get him in the right frame of mind to be able to go out and do that. I just tried to remind him of how good it felt to finish the way he did a year ago and earn a medal."

While the experience from a year ago benefited Kyle, the same couldn't be said for his sister Kelly, who was competing in her very first state meet in the Class AA girls race.

Also a junior, Kelly turned in a strong performance, finishing 114th out of 236 runners with a time of 21:22. With so many unknowns coming into the race, Kelly Gonoude leaned on her experience from the Colonial League and District 11 meets to help her in this race.

"The races the last two weeks definitely helped a lot," she said. "The hills in those two races were bigger than anything we had done during the regular season so that was definitely good preparation for this."

With the experience of her first state meet in only her first year of competition, Hensinger expects things to only get better for Kelly.

"The first time you're out here it's tough," Hansinger said. "You can talk to them and explain what it's like, but until you get into the race, you just don't know.

"For her first state race in her first year running, I thought she did really well. It was a great first year for her."

The performances cap a satisfying year for Hensinger and many others in the program.

"They deserve to be here because they've worked so hard at it," Hensinger said. "It's truly good for them."